


Croes o Waed

by for_t2



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Apparating (Harry Potter), Being Lost, Blood, Churches & Cathedrals, Dark Magic, Darkness, Death, F/F, Good and Evil, Honesty vs. Dishonesty, Horror, Nightmares, Racism, Torture, Trapped, You Have to Want Redemption, cowardice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28295070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: Bellatrix's nightmares have never ended well, and neither will apparating into them
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Croes o Waed

Hermione's feet had barely left the ground before something grabbed them. Before something painfully twister her the other way. Before the flat roof of the manor was replaced by a curving stone arch, even darker.

Before Hermione was falling.

She didn't have the chance to cry out before she slammed into the ground. Hard. Hard enough to make her vision blur and her breath implode. Hard.

It took her a few seconds of gasping before she was able to focus on the cold stone beneath her back. It wasn't freezing, but was a cold that was almost Dementor-like, a damp, lingering cold that could never quite get warm again. It didn't help that the roof didn't seem to be fully intact, the rhythm of rain pounding down on it mingling with the steady drips of a few leaks.

Leaks that Hermione couldn't see in the dark. She could barely even see her own fingers. "Lumos." Even the light of her wand felt dampened, barely shining off the... the altar in front of her. She was in a church. She had almost been impaled. If she had fallen a few centimetres to the right, the sharp stone edge would've torn right through her.

She would've... 

"Focus." She swore to herself and forced herself to move. To press her still-trembling hands to the cold floor and push herself... She didn't quite make it all the way up before she felt a growing puddle of water at her fingertips. A warm puddle of water. Sticky.

The light from her wand touched it a split second after she realised what it was.

"Merlin." She swore out loud as she saw the crumpled dark mass of a body a few steps away from her. "Harry!" Scrambled as she just managed to catch a glimpse of messy dark hair.

Her knees scraped uncomfortably against the stone as she hurried to crawl over. To put her wand between her teeth and her hands to his body to find the wound to stop the bleeding to... 

Harry's skin was never that white.

His hair was never that long. His clothes never that delicate. That black.

She barely had the time to find the metal jutting out of the thin, almost skeletal, body before it stirred. Before its dark eyes met hers.

Before Bellatrix Lestrange was staring at her.

The darkness around them could suffocate as the blood seeped through, seeped around, Hermione's fingers, a trickle making its way down her sleeve, as she kept her hand pressed to the side of someone whose stare only stayed unfocused for a dreadful moment in the silence.

"Mudblood."

Despite the hiss of her voice, the murder of her eyes, Hermione stayed frozen. She needed to run. She needed to defend herself. She needed to strike first before Bellatrix tried to... She needed to figure out what Bellatrix had done, where she was, how she was going to get out. A part of her even felt like she needed to save Bellatrix, or at least just help her stop the bleeding. To do the right thing and-- 

Her breath imploded again as Bellatrix lashed out and connected. Her wand clattered out of her mouth and down the stone as Bellatrix shoved her away, pushed herself up, and slammed her boot into Hermione's chest. "Oh, Muddy," Bellatrix's voice barely flinched as she ripped the cross out of her gut and tossed it aside. "What have you done now?"

Hermione didn't have the chance to crawl towards her wand before Bellatrix kicked her again, sending her even further into the darkness.

"Where have you brought me?" A not quite nervous, excited giggle echoed out of Bellatrix's lips. "Surely the great heroes of the Order of the Phoenix have someplace better to hide than..." For a second, Bellatrix's voice trailed off. And then came back, harsher, less amused, along with the glow of light from her own wand. "Where are we?"

Just enough of Hermione's breath came back to allow to roll out of the way of Bellatrix's next kick. "I don't know." To make a dive for her wand. "You tell me."

If Bellatrix was taller than her, she seemed taller yet up by the altar, the shadows shaping the cutting edges of her face, he rest of her fading into the nothingness. "I'm not in the mood for games, Muddy."

If Bellatrix truly had no idea where they were, then it wasn't a stretch to conclude that something had gone horribly wrong. And if that was, even slightly, something approaching fear creeping into her voice, then.... "What did you--"

" _Crucio_!"

Every cell in Hermione's body ripped itself apart, every nerve screaming, every bone cracking and grinding, every blood vessel twisting and squirming like worms beneath her skin, like sharp rivers of fire that needed to escape, that needed to consume her, that needed every bit of hers to be theirs.

She couldn't quite believe it was over when she hollowed out, left with only the hyperventilating ache of her lungs and the far too brittle wood of her wand between her fingers. "I'm going to ask nicely one more time." Hermione forced herself to focus on her wood, on Bellatrix's voice. "The Dark Lord will find us, and believe me, he is far less inclined to show mercy to those who attack his faithful."

"Wherever we are," Hermione somehow managed to find her footing. "You brought us here. You--"

" _Cruc_ \--"

" _Protego_!"

The curse crashed off into something hidden in the darkness, and in the fury that contorted Bellatrix's eyes, Hermione realised she had made a mistake. Dueling Bellatrix one-on-one wasn't something Hermione was sure she'd be capable of even in the best of circumstances, and especially not when she was exhausted from days (weeks? hours?) of torture in the manor. "You filthy, stealing, whore of a witch." She barely managed to block one of Bellatrix's curses before the next ones came flying at her. "Where are we?"

Hermione tried to block as many of them as she could. Even tried to fling a few back. But quickly decided that it would be better to try and run.

And run she did.

The only problem was that it was pitch black, and it was easier to escape in the dark. Which meant turning off the light from her wand left her darker still. She stumbled into a few pews, slipped on a few pools, before Bellatrix stopped flinging curses at random.

Before Bellatrix cackled. "I know you're here, mudblood." Before Bellatrix's footsteps echoed off stone. "What would Potter say if he saw his brains scampering off into the dark like a rat?" She cackled again, even louder. "What would your dear muggle mother say if she saw all the magic she could steal would only birth a coward?" An almost blinding curse, flames maybe, roared out of Bellatrix's wand into thin air. "Come and face me like a real witch."

Hermione could taste the iron in her mouth from where her teeth bit into her lips to force them to stay silent. It took everything she had to just inch, step by step by silent step, away from Bellatrix and towards-- Into a wall. She couldn't stop herself from whimpering.

"Found you."

Hermione ducked just in time to miss the curse that sailed over her head and shattered against the wall. No, the wall shattered. The glass shattered. The window.

She jumped through it before the next curse could find her, the shards of broken still sticking to the frame scraping against her skin, thankfully not catching.

She didn't waste any time in picking herself back out of the mud and...

And...

There were eyes in the trees.

Maybe not eyes, but something blinking in and out between the leaves, something that Hermione couldn't quite focus on, something that made her head ache, her vision swim, something that was watching her.

Something that was everywhere and around her and the mud wasn't staying still, was squelching, sucking, and the world was moving, tilting towards the trees, towards the-- 

Hermione bumped into something as she tried to run back. Something that was so impossibly warm against everything that surrounded them that half of her instincts screamed at her to curl up into it, even if it meant death.

But Bellatrix didn't move to kill her. Didn't move at all. Only got even paler. "No."

For a second, Hermione held still against her, waiting, holding her breath.

And then Bellatrix fell.

*****

Against all her better judgment, Hermione gathered up enough wood that a few drying spells and a spark could start a small fire in the middle of the church, and set Bellatrix down next to it.

She should've left her. Should've killed her when she had the chance. They were fighting a war and Bellatrix would kill her and everyone she cares about without second thought. Hell, Bellatrix would do a lot worse than just killing, and she would enjoy it.

But it still seemed wrong. And at least she could justify it to herself by saying that she was going to need every scrap of information she could get out of Bellatrix. Because, wherever they were, she had a feeling it wasn't somewhere that was meant to be escaped. If it even had a purpose anymore and wasn't just some tangle of terribly old magic (Merlin knows how many hundreds of years old) grown wild, overgrown beyond any control.

It was better to stay inside. Better to try and do the impossible and interrogate, even make some sort of temporary peace with a Death Eater. With fucking Bellatrix Lestrange.

Hermione couldn't rule out the possibility that this place (or the torture in the manor) had already driven her insane.

If it was any consolation, Bellatrix's wound was deep, and Hermione wasn't entirely sure she had managed to stop the bleeding. And Bellatrix had already lost a lot of blood. Had been unconscious for a long time.

Which, of course, meant that she stirred the moment Hermione finally turned her back on her and decided to try and find a bit more wood to board up the window (just in case).

"Where..." Bellatrix's voice was groggy as her hand patted the floor and found nothing. "You've stolen my wand." As she tried to push herself up. To sight her sights on Hermione. "You disgusting--"

Hermione sighed. "Stupefy."

*****

While Bellatrix slept, Hermione set herself to the task at hand.

First priority was light - the bigger the illumination spell she tried to cast, the less it illuminated, which meant she needed to gather more wood and keep the fire burning. It also meant that there had to be some kind of magic dampening charms in the church, but she wasn't exactly sure which ones. Second priority was water - there didn't seem to be anything edible inside, but there was the rain. Even then, the rain had a peculiar taste to it, a tang of something metallic and uncomfortably close to iron. A few purification spells didn't quite erase the taste, but at that point she was too thirsty to really care. Third priority was location - whatever was outside, it didn't seem to be trying to get in (not yet, at least), which gave her room to explore.

And that priority almost swallowed up her fourth - time. The church wasn't huge, but there was an elegance to its design that made her wish she had a book (or two) on the history of church architecture. And it really made her wish she had more light - in the darkness, it was hard to get a full image of the church, only being able to glimpse each small section she passed by one by one, flickering firelight barely touching the weathered stone faces carved into the edges where the walls met the arches curving above.

And time, well, priority number four was also a problem. She had tried casting a few time-keeping spells, but none of them lasted more than a few minutes. Every time she looked away, it seemed like they were gone the moment she looked back. The weather outside never changed, neither getting lighter not darker, and she was pretty sure they had been in here for at least a few hours already, which meant either some terrifyingly impressive illusion charms or... Well, Hermione wasn't quite sure what that or was. She had definitely read more than a few stories of wizards who once claimed to have travelled to new worlds, or to have created their own worlds within the world, but none of the stories had ever really stood up to any kind of real scrutiny.

"I don't need a wand to kill you, Muddy." Hermione jumped at the low voice that suddenly rasped behind her. "You should know--"

"Bellatrix." This time, Hermione was going to have the first word, and she was going to make it a firm word. "Um, Miss Lestrange." Even if Bellatrix was barely sitting upright, Hermione didn't quite know how to do this. "Do you know where we are?" Hermione raised her wand before Bellatrix could answer. "And if you try anything, I'll stun you again."

Bellatrix laughed, wincing slightly every time she got a little too close to maniacal. "Do you really think you're intimidating?"

"No." Hermione answered honestly. "But I think you've lost a lot of blood, you've lost your wand, and you lost your mind a long time ago. So I think you're scared."

Bellatrix half-laughed, half-hissed. "You know nothing about loss, mudblood. Your kind only know how to take what's rightfully ours. To steal our birthr--" 

"Silencio." Hermione took a step forward and crouched closer to Bellatrix. "Look, I'm scared too. I don't know where we are, I don't know what's out there, and I don't know what to do." She wished Katie Bell or someone with better diplomatic skills were here with her. "So as much as it kills me to say it, I think I need your help. And I think you need mine."

She let the silence hang between them for a few moments before removing the silencing charm from Bellatrix's lips. "When the Dark Lord--"

"Voldemort's not coming." Hermione had to admit that seeing Bellatrix flinch at the name was a little satisfying. "We've been here for hours. Where is he? Aren't you supposed to be his most loyal lieutenant?" 

"You'll regret every syllable--"

"I don't have Harry, I don't even know where Dobby took Harry. How pleased do you think Voldemort's going to be when he hears that?" Maybe it was just because she had nowhere left to hide, but Hermione was starting to lose her fear of Bellatrix. "Do you really think he's going to care about you when you come back with nothing?" 

Bellatrix tried to push herself to her feet, but failed. "I waited a decade in Azkaban and he rewarded me."

"Is that why your sister looks so miserable?" Something strange flickered across Bellatrix's face. "You know, I've spoken to Andromeda too. She said they used to call you the brightest witch of your age."

"The blood traitor knows nothing about me."

"That's not all she said." Andromeda hadn't said much, truthfully, had said that she didn't like talking about it, but she had said enough. And Tonks knew enough about their mother to say a little more. "She said that, despite everything, part of her still loves you."

Bellatrix's expression twisted from strange to fury. "She betrayed us! She betrayed everything our family meant and everything that we were going to do to make our family great. She betrayed our family, she betrayed Cissy, she betrayed me!" This time, Bellatrix did make it to her feet. "She's worse than a mudblood."

"Part of her still loves you."

When Bellatrix stepped forward, it took every bit Hermione still had not to retreat. "If you mention her again, I will show you pain."

"Andromeda still--"

"No!"

" _Protego_!" Hermione threw her shield up the second Bellatrix lunged. " _Petrificus Totalus_!" Threw the next spell the second Bellatrix tried a second charge. "Andromeda deserves better than a sister like you."

When the petrifying charm wore off, Bellatrix's hand was beginning to shake.

And Hermione didn't care. "So, Bellatrix, how are we going to get out of here?"

*****

The problem with working with Bellatrix wasn't just that she was an evil bigoted hag who would openly enjoy torturing you to death, it was also that she was so obnoxiously so. It wasn't so much the cool snide arrogance of a Malfoy, as a physical in-your-face arrogance. Hermione almost missed Malfoy's sense of self-control. Almost.

"Will you please shut up?"

Bellatrix cackled at Hermione's outburst. "Aww, poor Muddy. Is the witch bothering you?"

And it didn't help that they weren't getting anywhere closer to finding a way out. Not even to finding out where they even were. "How am I supposed to focus when you keep... doing that?"

Bellatrix leaned in far too close. Brought a nail up and along Hermione's neck. "We could always go back to the torture. I was having fun."

Hermione jabbed her wand into Bellatrix's bandages (producing a disturbingly satisfying wince). "Focus. Or else I'll stun you again."

Somehow, that just Bellatrix cackle even louder. "You know, Muddy, since we have so much time to spend together, why don't you tell me who they call the brightest witch of your age?"

Hermione glanced around, as if the darkness would give her any clues. "Considering the circumstances, probably Luna Lovegood." As she said it, her stomach was hit by a pang of longing. Luna might've been mildly eccentric, but she was genuinely brilliant and was one of the kindest people Hermione had ever met. And she knew a disturbingly large number of ghost stories (and probably ghosts too).

"Ah, the Lovegoods." Bellatrix snorter. "Muddy has a sense of humour."

"Please stop calling me that." Hermione was warming to the idea of just punching her next time. It would at least make her feel a little better. "I have a name."

"Why would I care?"

Hermione groaned out loud. "Okay, you know what? I'm done." She marched back to the fire. Grabbed a flaming piece of wood from it. "Whatever's out there can't be worse than what's in here."

"No!" Bellatrix lunged for her. Grabbed her before she had the chance to start marching towards the church doors. "Don't."

"Do you have a better idea?"

Bellatrix dug her nails into Hermione's skin. "You can't."

"Why not?"

Silence.

"Why not?" Hermione turned back to face her. "What's out there?" Bellatrix dropped Hermione's arm. Tried to turn her back to her. "You know something."

For a second, Bellatrix said nothing. And then she sighed, bored. "I've been here before."

Hermione couldn't believe her. "Bellatrix!"

Bellatrix shrugged. "I wasn't really here, of course. It was just a dream. And not the magical kind." She frowned. "It was just after..." The frown wavered for a second before contorting into a crooked smile. "Just after the Dark Lord finally accepted me as one of his faithful."

Leaving aside the fact that Hermione wasn't sure how apparating into a dream could be possible, if they had apparated into one of Bellatrix's nightmares... "How did the dream end?"

Bellatrix giggled. "The way all dreams end, Granger. You die screaming."

*****

If Hermione had wanted Bellatrix to focus, she wasn't prepared for her to tear every centimetre of the church apart in a mad quest that only made her get more and more frantic, that only made the search more and more disorganised as she jumped from one flickering thought to next without bothering to think in between.

Hermione was having trouble keeping up. And more importantly, Hermione was increasingly convinced the answers wouldn't be in the walls. "Listen, Bellatrix, I think if we tried talking about--"

"Now you're bothering me, Muddy."

How exactly are you supposed to get an insane Death Eater to talk to you about her teenage nightmares? Especially when you're both stuck inside said nightmare? "Bellatrix, if this church comes from one of your dream, then..."

Something caught Hermione's eye.

"Bellatrix." Hermione crouched down to the floor. Wiped the damp dust away from the stone blocks and brought the light of her wand a little closer over what looked like faded markings. "I've found something."

Like letters.

Different letters. "S." Hermione picked up the pace as she tried to find the first in the series. "I."

"N." Hermione could feel Bellatrix holding her breath as she joined in. "Muddy's not so stupid."

"H. O. N. I..." As she moved up the letters, she frowned. And her frown only got deeper as she reached the end. "Is this right?"

Bellatrix laughed. "It's nonsense. Nonsense!" She slammed her boot into a pew, sending it crashing to the ground. "Keep searching, mudblood!"

Not for the first time, Hermione wondering whether the Hogwarts curriculum could use some updating. Her ancient runes had gotten a lot better, but her French worse. But she didn't see another way to fit the letters together. "Honi soit qui mal se repent."

*****

Sometimes, you're left with only one conclusion, and it's the worst conclusion possible.

Their failure to find any hints, any clues, anything at all in the darkness, made Bellatrix more desperate, more agitated, but only made her less willing to talk and only made Hermione draw nearer and nearer to a conclusion she was dreading.

She saw two ways out. The first was to walk out that church door and pray that whatever was outside was only the end of the dream. The second was to play the dream out to its end herself. And that second wasn't something Hermione was ready to do. Not even to Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Why aren't you searching?" Bellatrix screamed at Hermione the moment she saw she had stopped. "Search!"

"I'm sorry, Bellatrix." Hermione took a deep breath. "But I think it's time that we left."And stepped towards the door.

"What are you doing?" Fear and anger flowed together through Bellatrix's voice with each step Hermione took. "Where are you going?"

"There's only one way out."

Fear. "You can't."

"In your dreams," Hermione didn't have the energy to try and argue any more. "Did you even try?"

"Don't." Bellatrix was shaking. "Don't!"

Hermione just took another-- 

Bellatrix charged. Flung herself into Hermione. Kicked, punched, wrestled for the wand.

But Hermione came out on top. Bruised, bleeding, but on top. "I'm not staying here forever, Bellatrix. I have a war to fight out there. I have my friends."

"Muddy, Granger..." Bellatrix struggled to spit the word out. "Hermione. You said we needed to work together."

Despite everything, Hermione still held out her hand. "We still can."

Bellatrix glared at her. "You're really going to leave me here?" 

It'd be wrong, wouldn't it? Even if it was Bellatrix Lestrange? "You'd leave me." Hermione withdrew her hand only long after Bellatrix had had a second chance to take it. "I don't owe you that."

Her footsteps echoed through the darkness as she walked away. As Bellatrix sat there, in fuming silence.

Hermione hesitated when she reached the door. When her hands rested for a second against the ancient, solid wood that separated them from the outside. But she settled herself into a breath. Into two. Into exhaling. Into shutting her eyes and pushing.

"Mudblood!" Hermione only made it a few steps out into the mud before she head the shriek of Bellatrix's voice. "Degenerate, filthy, savage bastard of a mudblood!"

She felt the eyes, the leaves buzzing through her head, stinging, the world falling as she felt her wand rise towards Bellatrix. As she hesitated one last time. 

" _Avada Kedavra."_

*****

The next thing Hermione felt was the grit of sand in her mouth.

The choke of water up her nose.

A part of her kicked into panic. Tried to jump up.

It only ended with her splashing back down.

Water. Sand. It took everything it shouldn't have been possible for her to have left to try and slump up to her knees. To breathe. And it took an impossible bit more for her to crack open her eyes.

The first thing she saw hurt. It was bright. Too bright. It took what felt like forever before she was able to do more than wince. Before she was able to see the beach around her. The traces of blood churning in the waves.

The people running towards her. Shouting. "Hermione!" 

Shouting. "Harry!" As soon as he reached her she flung her arms around him. And around Ron. Luna. Fleur? "You're safe."

"What happened? Were were you? We've thought you were..." She distantly felt like crying. "Is that blood?" Almost. "Hermione?"

"Harry." She forced herself to keep breathing. To remember. "The sword. Gringotts. We need to hurry."

"What...?" Worry mixed with confusion. "Hermione are you okay?"

"The Horcrux. Bellatrix..." The name escaped her lips for nausea to punch her stomach. She wiped her mouth after what little in her retched itself out into the sand. Steadied herself. The war wasn't over. Not yet. "Bellatrix is dead."


End file.
